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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151499">Sanctuary (In Each Other)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WednesdayGilfillian/pseuds/WednesdayGilfillian'>WednesdayGilfillian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Call the Midwife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brief mention of Patrick's PTSD, Comfort, F/M, Set During the Christmas Special, Sexual Tension, The night of the unexploded bomb, Turnadette - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:02:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,670</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23151499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WednesdayGilfillian/pseuds/WednesdayGilfillian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the Christmas Special in S2. Specifically, during the unsettled night that Shelagh turned up on Patrick's doorstep.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bernadette | Shelagh Turner/Patrick Turner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Lock Down Fest</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sanctuary (In Each Other)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I started writing this last year, but have just finished it now. (Because, suddenly, I feel the urge to write about people looking after each other in crisis.) I hope you get a smile out of reading it.</p><p>Thanks as ever to my wonderful beta readers, @fourteen-teacups and @ginchy. &lt;3333</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Patrick would never forget the look on her face when she’d accepted his proposal. In that moment, everything had been right with the world. But soon after, in the days and weeks that followed, he had recognised the guilt Shelagh was carrying. He should probably have expected it.</p><p>It wasn’t often left to the groom to select the flowers for his bride’s bouquet, Patrick knew. And this time ought to have been joyous. But he hoped that, once she had a wedding band on her finger, Shelagh would feel more secure in the choice she had made. Oh, he hoped.</p><p>Under these circumstances, thoughts and feelings that were perfectly natural for a husband-to-be started to feel inconsiderate, greedy and boorish. Patrick couldn’t help what he felt, however. He could only divert it, into dreams and fantasies. (In which Tim was conveniently out of the way, at Cub Scouts, or Granny Parker’s.)</p><p>Most often, his fantasies centred around the time he was supposed to take Shelagh back to her lodgings. Left to its own devices, his brain was apparently capable of coming up with a hundred different scenarios. Reasons why he’d be <em>unable</em> to take her back to the boarding house, and so she’d simply <em>have</em> to stay the night. (And if, in these dreams, they carried on from there, well…he was only human.) In this vague, forgiving, misty, dreamed-up version of reality, he only needed the flimsiest excuse.</p><p>Sometimes it was that the MG had broken down. (And there was clearly no other way to get her home…)</p><p>Sometimes it was a fog, a real pea-souper.</p><p>Sometimes it was a snowstorm.</p><p>It was never an unexploded bomb.</p><p>--</p><p>When Shelagh appeared on his doorstep, Patrick thought at first that the dream he’d been in the middle of had simply continued, skipping suddenly to a different scene. (And it had just been getting good…) But then he became aware of the anxiety radiating off her, and the distant noises in the street. The fog of sleep was slowly lifting, and in its place Patrick felt a rising sense of unease.</p><p>“Shelagh…”<br/>
“I’m sorry to wake you, Patrick. Any room at the inn?”<br/>
“O-of course… Are you alright?”<br/>
“I’m fine,” she assured him, though she was very clearly nervous. “But they’re cordoning off whole streets. We all had to leave the boarding house. An unexploded bomb has been discovered.”<br/>
These words jolted Patrick fully awake. He felt his pulse quicken.<br/>
“Good Lord… Come in.”<br/>
He stepped back to let her into the hall, and quickly closed the door behind them.</p><p>Shelagh was there, in his flat, at night, asking to stay…but this was not a fantasy. It was something closer to a nightmare. But, Patrick assured himself, this was <em>not</em> the Blitz. She was safe, they both were. Still, he felt the irrational urge to press his hand to her forehead, like he had when he’d found her on the road. To wrap her up again in his overcoat, and make certain she was really safe.</p><p>Shelagh stood unbuttoning her coat, oblivious to Patrick’s turmoil, and the wartime memories he was repressing. He would keep it that way, he was determined. Even before this bomb, she already had more than enough to cope with.</p><p>Shelagh had not yet removed her coat, but hovered nervously beside him.<br/>
“I’m sorry to turn up like this. At this hour. I know it isn’t proper…”<br/>
That was enough to pull Patrick’s attention away from the shadows at the edges of his consciousness. He would focus on soothing her, instead. He couldn’t stand to have her feeling guilty.</p><p>He took both her hands, then found he needed more contact. He let his grip slide upwards till he held her by the elbows, a half-embrace in which they stood quite close.<br/>
“Shelagh,” he assured her softly, “you are <em>always welcome</em>. I’m just glad you’re safe.”<br/>
“Of course I’m safe. I didn’t mean for you to worry.”<br/>
She looked down at the way he was holding her, and Patrick wondered if he might have been too tactile, given the lateness of the hour. But she didn’t pull away. She never had, now that he came to think of it. Shelagh smiled, as if to soothe him, and Patrick felt the last of his fears dispelled.</p><p>He continued in a whisper, though he was hardly sure why he did so. Timothy, the street, the rest of the world, all felt a million miles away – as though the hallway was its own private universe.<br/>
“We’ll make a bed up for me on the settee, and you can take mine, upstairs.”<br/>
Shelagh’s brow furrowed. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly. I’ll be perfectly comfortable, I’m sure…and you’ve got patients to see to in the morning.”<br/>
“It wouldn’t be a bother…”<br/>
“No, really, Patrick…”</p><p>The actual words they were speaking, their polite disagreement, seemed out of place in this world-turned-upside-down context. So much more significant than the actual words was the <em>way</em> they were whispering, in the dead of night, together in the darkened hallway. And – Patrick realised – as seconds passed, they’d been drifting, gravitating towards each other. Their faces had somehow got very close. Had that been <em>her</em> doing, also…or just him?</p><p>It was probably the adrenaline, Patrick thought. The relief. It wasn’t as though they’d never stood so close together…or that they’d never kissed. But not in the wee small hours of the morning, completely alone and unaccounted for. There was an intimacy there, in the semi-darkness. Patrick could feel its pull…and knew he ought to resist it.</p><p>When he spoke, his whisper was slightly strained – even as he tried to make light of the situation.<br/>
“I’d better wake up Timothy. He’d never forgive me if I let him sleep through the excitement of an unexploded bomb.”<br/>
Shelagh chuckled softly, stepping back from their half-embrace. She looked almost sheepish all of a sudden, though Patrick could hardly think why.</p><p>Patrick went and woke his son, who – as predicted – was fascinated by the prospect of a dormant bomb. (Of course, he’d never known the daily reality.) Yawning but excited by the novel situation, Timothy greeted ‘Auntie Shelagh’, and asked for all the details she could give. They sat together in the living room, where Patrick had lit the lamps. He was just thinking about putting the kettle on, but decided he should fetch the bedding first. Shelagh turned to face him as he passed.</p><p>“I don’t want to keep you up much longer… I should be letting you both get back to sleep. But if you’re going to fetch a few things, I wonder, could I ask…”<br/>
She was blushing, he suddenly realised.<br/>
“We had to leave the boarding house in a such a hurry, I didn’t have any time to pack… Do you think I could borrow something to sleep in? Just a spare set of pyjamas? I’m sorry to ask…”<br/>
Patrick hoped he had managed to keep his face neutral.<br/>
“Oh… Of course… Err, just a minute.”</p><p>He dashed upstairs, willing himself to focus on the practicalities – and <em>not</em> on the fact that <em>his pyjamas</em> were going to be next to Shelagh’s skin. That was definitely not something he needed to think about. (At least until he’d gone back to bed…)<br/>
<em>Oh, for God’s sake, man! You’ll be married in a few days, have some restraint!</em></p><p>Patrick selected his best and newest pair of pyjamas, thankful that by chance they’d just come out of the wash. Even so, he was embarrassed as he handed them over to Shelagh. (This was <em>not</em> the context in which he’d imagined her becoming familiar with his nightwear.) Then Patrick realised he’d completely forgotten the bedding, and dashed back to the linen cupboard to fetch it. When he returned to the living room, however, he found Timothy sitting by himself. Patrick’s feeling of disorientation was only increasing.</p><p>“…Where’s Auntie Shelagh?”<br/>
“She went to change,” said Timothy, simply. “I told her she could use my room.”<br/>
“Oh, well… That was very nice of you. Why don’t you make up a bed for her on the settee – there’s a fresh pillowcase there, put that on the pillow – and I’ll make us all some tea.”</p><p>The boy set to work without complaining, too excited by having his evening turned on its head. Patrick found the better set of china, and was carrying the first teacup and saucer out to the table when a voice made him look up.</p><p>“Oh Timothy, I could have done that…”</p><p>The cup and saucer clattered against each other as Patrick’s hold on them momentarily slipped. Shelagh had returned, and…well…</p><p>She looked…</p><p>He wasn’t sure what he had expected. Timothy <em>had</em> said she’d gone to change. But somehow Patrick hadn’t been prepared to see Shelagh wearing his pyjamas over her skirt, her hair falling in waves about her face… Oh, bloody hell. He had thought that, when he’d finally see a sight like this, he would already be married to her…and therefore be able to <em>do</em> something about it! (A number of ideas sprang to mind…) Patrick suddenly had a renewed sympathy for that Greek fellow Tantalus.</p><p>Surreptitiously checking to see that he hadn’t chipped the teacup, Patrick pulled himself together.<br/>
“Err, Tim… Why don’t you make the tea?”</p><p>He couldn’t help himself. He <em>had</em>, at least, to sit near her, and just drink the sight of her in. He was waffling the conversation, he knew – reviving their polite argument about sleeping arrangements, more or less as an excuse to look at her intently. And <em>if </em>Shelagh knew that, she didn’t seem to mind. Where was the guilty, worried woman he had known these past few weeks?</p><p>Suspended rules, and strange hours, and suddenly she was relaxed, glowing. Patrick wondered if this was because she <em>couldn’t</em> be at her boarding house – and so she <em>had</em> to be here, with him. With them. This wasn’t a choice she felt guilty about making. She had a valid excuse.</p><p>(He hoped, soon, she’d start to believe that she really didn’t need one.)</p><p>Anyway, for now, this was better and warmer than any of his fantasies. His imagination had never quite conjured up the gleam of lamplight on her hair. And it was right that Tim should be there. It was safer, for one thing. But not just that. They were <em>right</em> together, the three of them.</p><p>Sooner than Patrick might have liked, the tea was finished, and Shelagh was insisting they all went to bed. He ushered Timothy out of the living room, and then, finding himself alone with Shelagh, mumbled an awkward goodnight and left. On the other side of the closed door, Patrick cursed himself. What kind of a host was he, leaving her like that?</p><p>He dithered for a few minutes, walking fitfully up and down the hall, reaching to knock on her door again, and then halting. Finally, an idea struck him. He should offer her another pillow. He should probably have done that anyway – it wasn’t even an excuse.</p><p>Patrick fetched another pillow from the linen cupboard, and knocked gently on the living room door. From the other side, he heard a muffled noise of what sounded like assent, so he opened the door and stepped in.</p><p>It took Patrick all of a second to realise that what he’d half-heard was actually <em>“Just a minute…”</em></p><p>Shelagh was frozen halfway to the settee. Her eyes were wide – and as Patrick’s gaze fell, it became obvious why. The tweed skirt she’d been wearing with his pyjama shirt was gone. In its absence, the silk of her slip was the only thing covering her legs.</p><p>It really shouldn’t have mattered; his pyjama shirt was so large on her, Patrick had seen more of her figure in her fitted suits. And her slip wasn’t very much shorter than her skirt. Somehow, though, that didn’t stop the sight from feeling breathtakingly intimate. </p><p>“Oh, err, s-sorry…”<br/>
Patrick was mortified, though Shelagh seemed equally apologetic.<br/>
“No, it’s alright, I, erm…”<br/>
They both stammered to a halt, and smiled sheepishly at each other, and Patrick felt a great surge of relief.<br/>
“I just wanted to offer you an extra pillow. That settee really wasn’t designed for sleeping on.”</p><p>He spoke these words while keeping his eyes determinedly on her face. However, this really didn’t help. Because her cheeks were flushed, and if that wasn’t <em>just</em> how he’d imagined she might look…only better, because this was real. Then Patrick willed himself to be sober. He might be half bowled over by the sight of her, but there were serious things he needed to say.</p><p>“I hope you feel comfortable here, Shelagh. Not just on the settee. I mean…I hope you feel that you made the right choice, coming here tonight.”<br/>
She met his steady gaze. “I do…”<br/>
A moment later, she shyly ducked her head, as they both smiled at the resonance of those words.</p><p>Somehow, again, without quite noticing, they had moved closer to each other once more. And this time, Patrick knew it wasn’t fear for each other’s safety, or relief, or adrenaline, that was drawing them into each other’s orbit.</p><p>Shelagh was looking not quite at him, but into the middle distance. And he <em>knew</em> that she wanted him to kiss her. But while she was standing there in a slip and his pyjamas, Patrick just couldn’t. It would be too much, and not enough.</p><p>Instead, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and breathed in the scent of her hair. How he loved her.</p><p>“Now,” he said, a little thickly, “I’m going to go upstairs. If you’re sure I can’t convince you to let me bunk down there in your place…?”<br/>
“No, no,” Shelagh pulled back. “You’ve got patients to see in the morning, and you know you wouldn’t sleep well here. I’d hate to be responsible for your getting a poor night’s sleep.”</p><p>Patrick stared, waiting for her innocent expression to give away any hint that she was joking. But apparently she really didn’t know how fitfully he would sleep, the vision of her thus attired burned into his brain. Once they were married, Patrick decided, he was going to tease her about that. He’d let her know exactly how many night’s sleep she’d ruined.</p><p>“Anyway, I like it down here.” Her smile turned self-deprecating. “I like the Christmas lights…”<br/>
She nodded towards the little Christmas tree, with its glowing multi-coloured lights.<br/>
Patrick smiled. “We’ll get a bigger tree next year.”</p><p><em>Next year. </em>Then, they would be married. The air between them now was full of words unsaid. Warm things. Things they would surely find ways to articulate, in the days and weeks to come.</p><p>But for the moment, Patrick bid her goodnight, and left her in the half-lit living room.</p><p>--</p><p>Turning off the nearby lamp, so that only the light of the Christmas tree was remaining, Shelagh settled down in the living room’s silence. Patrick had gone, and yet this room was still so full of him. Somehow, it felt like an embrace.</p><p>Of <em>course</em> she had made the right choice, coming to Patrick in time of need. She had been so drawn and worried in recent weeks. Before there was any news of a bomb.</p><p>But now, here in the darkness, she knew the inner glow she felt was real. The sense of security.</p><p>She could find it, for now, in the warmth of Patrick’s living room. In the soft glow of his Christmas tree. And Shelagh had faith she would find it again <em>elsewhere</em>, too. Out on Poplar’s streets, where just at the moment she walked with her head down. She knew she would feel at ease there, again. In the future. She <em>would</em> feel braver than this.</p><p>For now, though – for tonight – she would sleep warm in Patrick’s blue pyjamas. In the glow of a Christmas tree. And in the warmth of the promises they had made, and would keep making, to each other.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'd love to know what you think. Comments are very welcome!</p><p>Also, feel free to say hi on Tumblr: @wednesdaygilfillian</p></blockquote></div></div>
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